


한 번 더 날 믿어줘 (Believe In Me Once More)

by whodoulove



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Codependency, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Smoking, Unhealthy Relationships, Unrequited Love, brief mention of Showki, this is so self indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-18 07:11:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19329646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whodoulove/pseuds/whodoulove
Summary: What Hoseok wants the most in life, is to be an adult. That means Hoseok wants someone exciting.Hyungwon is the predictable, safe choice.That means Hoseok wouldn’t want to end up with his childhood friend, that's why he always takes it back.





	한 번 더 날 믿어줘 (Believe In Me Once More)

Hyungwon knows, to a certain extent, that Hoseok loves him. Hoseok loves him, but not enough. What Hoseok wants the most in life, is to be an adult. That means Hoseok wouldn’t want to end up with his childhood friend. Hoseok wants someone exciting, like a girl whose actually a famous actress or an older boy who models for Versace. Not Hyungwon, whose safe and rich like the rest of their schoolmates, who’ll go on to have a high-paying boring job with the government or a big company. Hyungwon is the predictable, safe choice, and he knows that. Hyungwon is used to Hoseok looking at others. And every time, when Hoseok takes back his drunken ‘I love you’, Hyungwon dumps Hoseok’s clothes in front of his dorm door and blocks Hoseok’s number, Snapchat, Instagram and even Facebook. Like clockwork, Hoseok will show up at Hyungwon’s dorm door with a puppy-dog smile, eyes red from crying and something Hyungwon really wanted.

 

This time, Hoseok shows up, with red eyes and that hopeful smile and the first edition of Lolita and Hyungwon is tired. Tired, of being the one waiting for Hoseok, of the one who watches Hoseok kissing someone else. Hyungwon looks at the guilty head of black-blue hair, the way his bitten nails catch in the hem of a hoodie Hyungwon bought him, and Hyungwon finds himself crying.

 

Who is this stranger, made in a night? Who is this man before him?

 

Hyungwon hardly cries. He cried once, 15 years old, at his grandmother’s funeral. He cried once more, a month later, at his grandfather’s bedside. The unpredicted reaction startles Hoseok, who flails his arms and widens his eyes and tries to hug Hyungwon, but Hyungwon doesn’t want to be touched or hugged or have any physical contact with this newly minted stranger.

 

“Wonnie, I’m-“ Hoseok anxiously starts; wanting to get to the part where they don’t kiss and only make up and Hyungwon can’t hear it. The sorry has been said so much it has lost all meaning when coming from Hoseok. The sorry is said because Hoseok thinks it will make him feel better. Hoseok should have stopped saying meaningless words a long time ago.

 

“No, Hoseok.” Hyungwon chokes, his eyes burning and throat seizing. It feels like allergies. “You aren’t sorry.”

 

Hoseok pouts, than gets mad, than gets really sad. Hyungwon sees the truth settle in Hoseok’s eyes, sees how Hoseok’s realization settles, slowly, like creamer into coffee. The darker curls, sneaking smoked fingers into sensitive corners and prods until it finds simmering hurt, waiting to explode.

 

“Hyungwon…” Hoseok sounds lost and truly sad (for once). “I do love you, you know that?”

 

Hyungwon has to swallow his heart.

 

“I don’t believe you.” Hyungwon tells him, moving to shut his door. Hoseok sticks his foot, the door jams, Hyungwon’s left staring through the gap at his best friend’s crestfallen face. “I can’t believe you.”

 

Hoseok looks devastated, like he was the one who saw Hoseok kissing some random girl outside a Sainsbury’s the day after he texted Hyungwon ‘I think I’m in love with you’.

 

“Hyungwon…” Hoseok tries to take Hyungwon’s hand, but Hyungwon’s palm feels full of needles and if Hoseok touches him Hyungwon’s afraid he’ll give in like so many times before, and get stabbed again.

 

“I’m sorry.” Hoseok offers. “Wonnie, I’m sorry. I love you.”

 

Hyungwon shuts his eyes. Hoseok is desperate before him, with those big clear eyes and worried look, but Hyungwon cannot look. It’s been five years since this started and Hyungwon gives in every time. Hyungwon needs a cigarette.

 

“What do you want me to buy?” Hoseok says quietly, like he’s giving up, and Hyungwon can feel Hoseok touch his clenched hand carefully. Hoseok tries to unfold Hyungwon’s stiff fingers, but Hyungwon snatches his hand away and opens his eyes to Hoseok’s kicked-bunny expression.

 

“Go home, Hoseok.” Hyungwon says, pushing Hoseok’s foot away, pushes the meaningless words away.

 

Hyungwon shuts the door, and slumps down against it. He can hear Hoseok walk back to his dorm room down the hall and shut his own door.

 

Right. Hyungwon is going to finally move out.

* * *

Hyungwon had this house for months. His older brother left it empty when he had to relocate to London for work. Everything is practically there already, except a few clothes, books, random litter and what not. Hyungwon had just handed his key back to the reception and is carrying the last box out to the dorm parking lot when he bumps into Hoseok, carrying a Tesco’s bag.

 

“Wonnie.” Hoseok says, and Hyungwon knows he can see how red and swollen Hyungwon’s eyes are, can see the dark eye circles and upset line of Hyungwon’s lips. “Are you really moving out?”

 

“Yea.” Hyungwon replies, voice thankfully stable and not cigarette sore.

 

Hoseok furrows his eyebrows.

 

“Why-Where…how do I know where to find you?” Hoseok asks, confused.

 

“I don’t want you to find me.” Hyungwon says, the most assertive he’s been in three years, the loudest and most certain his tone has ever been to Hoseok. “I don’t want to be with someone who says I love you like it’s a last resort. I am the one who sits in his dorm room, waiting for you to come back with someone else on his breath. Do you think I’m always going to forgive you, just because I love you? I’m so tired of always waiting for you. I’m tired of being your safe option.”

 

Hyungwon says all this to Hoseok, at 5 in the afternoon, when Hyungwon’s holding a box with Kihyun’s spare glasses, a 30 year-old bottle of Macallan’s that Jooheon gave him as a birthday present and Hoseok's socks.

 

“Wonnie, I do love you.” Hoseok murmurs quietly, looking down at his feet. He’s wearing a pair of worn CDG converse that Hyungwon bought him a long time ago. “That’s what I know.”

 

Hyungwon wants to slap a hand over his prickling eyes, because he’s saying these three words that Hyungwon’s waited lifetimes to hear so cheaply. It’s not said with the emotion of the vowels, it’s being offered like a branch back to shore. Hyungwon wants the raw feeling, the truthful words. He won’t get it while Hoseok’s sober. Hyungwon hefts his box into his arms and looks away from Hoseok.

 

“I’m tired, hyung.” Hyungwon tells Hoseok and watches him shrink.

 

When Hyungwon starts his car and starts to drive away, he can see that Hoseok’s put down his Tesco’s bag, and is quietly crying in the parking lot, with his hands pressed to his face.

 

Hyungwon feels more upset then satisfied.

* * *

“ _But you love him!”_ His mother’s tinny voice, warped by Skype, pokes holes into the silence of the house. _“And he loves you? Why does he do this?_ ”

 

“I don’t know Mama.” Hyungwon tells his mother’s earnest face. “It’s complicated.”

 

“ _C'est ça l'amour._ ” His mother shakes her head. “ _He really is an idiot.”_

 

Hyungwon laughs. He’s so lonely. Hyungwon feels so detached, sitting in his new living room, on a rug he didn’t buy, talking to his mother on a Saturday night.

 

“ _You will forgive him in the end, no?”_ His mother interrupts, her eyes piercing and knowing even through the blurry pixels of his screen. Hyungwon nods.

 

No matter how badly Hoseok fucks up, Hyungwon will forgive him. Everyone knows this. This is a fact. It is as unchangeable as the past, as true as the sky is blue. Pigs do not fly and Hyungwon always forgives Hoseok.

 

His mother is sad, through the screen. She never understood Hyungwon’s love, never understood why his love was this much. Hyungwon’s love seemed like the galaxy, infinite and uncountable in its mass-especially when compared to Hoseok’s. Hyungwon’s love, no matter how vast, no matter how beautiful in it’s completeness, always seemed to be countered by the feminine.

* * *

It’s been two weeks, and Hyungwon has managed to avoid Hoseok for the most part. Being out of the dorm hall helped a lot. No accidental meeting as Hyungwon goes to pick up his Deliveroo, for instance.

 

“Hoseok’s miserable.” Hyunwoo tells him when Hyungwon goes to drop off Kihyun’s spare glasses.

 

“As he should be!” Kihyun yells from inside the apartment, bustling his way in front of his burly boyfriend so that he can drag Hyungwon into their apartment. “Hyungwon always ends up forgiving Hoseok, time and time again.”

 

“I never said that was a bad thing.” Hyunwoo mumbles, shutting the door behind him as he scratches the back of his head. “Hoseok needed this.”

 

“He’s been begging us for your new address.” Hyunwoo adds, crossing his arms over his bare chest. “We didn’t give it.”

 

“Cause we don’t know it.” Kihyun rolls his eyes at Hyunwoo. He grabs something from a kitchen drawer, and hands it to Hyungwon. It’s a stack of post-its and a pen.

 

“What?”

 

Kihyun sighs, and puts his hands on his hips.

 

“Look, Hyungwon.” He starts, and Hyunwoo slides into view behind Kihyun to act as moral support. “We all know you’re gonna hear him out. That’s just a fact for all of us. So write down your new address and when you’re ready, Hoseok-hyung can go over and properly make amends.”

 

Hyungwon clicks the pen, contemplating.

 

“And since I’ll know where you live, I can bring you food.” Kihyun bribes.

 

At that, Hyungwon scribbles his address down, because Kihyun’s homemade kimchi is worth killing new-borns for.

* * *

Hyungwon runs away to London for a weekend. Hides his sorrow in the golden ceilings of Harrods and empties his wallet into the registers. It’s all-hollow, not even making a drop in the grand scheme, so he sits in his older brother’s empty apartment with his knees to his chest.

 

“Did you shop your feelings away?” Changkyun pipes up, slamming the front door. Hyungwon jumps, whipping his head around. Changkyun’s kicking off his shoes and swathed in his enormous puffy coat, grey beanie pulled over his ears and he looks so childish, pouting and angry about his older brother’s love problems.

 

Hyungwon pats the space on the couch beside him, and Changkyun waddles his way to Hyungwon, peeling off his bag and flinging his coat on the floor.

 

“That’s a Moncler.” Hyungwon chastises.

 

“Whatever.” Changkyun groans, cuddling into Hyungwon’s side. “Hoseok is just pussying out because he’s never had to deal with his actual emotions. Just making excuses until you’ve had enough and snapped.”

 

“I did snap.” Hyungwon hums, settling his arm around his brother, his finger already finding a loose thread on the sweater to pinch and pull at.

 

“You popped off.” Changkyun agrees, eyeing the bags scattered around the living room.

 

“I don’t think he’d ever come around.” Changkyun says, into the quiet night. Hyungwon freezes into a snapshot. The moment is taken, horrifically imprinting itself into his mind. Here it is, the smell of sandalwood and the plush lines of Minhyuk’s couch and Changkyun huddled into his side. The misery jabs his way into his heart and Hyungwon can feel it root there as he dimly observes the golden lights of London.

 

Changkyun sniffles, and Hyungwon stares at the false stars of London City, until the blur and smudge into these trembling, incorporeal blots of light.

 

He doesn’t know when he falls asleep, but Minhyuk shakes him awake and Changkyun’s dozing under a pile of blankets. Minhyuk smiles, petting his hair and being uncharacteristically gentle. Hyungwon follows his older brother like a dog, to the kitchen counter, to the coffee machine.

 

He folds himself into the absurd barstool-armchair hybrid. Minhyuk indicates his phone with a tilt of his head.

 

“Have you really been on call with Jooheon for four hours?”

 

“ _We’ve been discussing you_.” Jooheon pipes up, Minhyuk humming in agreement, “ _You and Hoseok-hyung.”_

 

“What are you going to say to him?” Minhyuk asks. Hyungwon bows his head. The silence in the room was terrifying, drilling into his head, scratching at his eardrum. Minhyuk raises an eyebrow.

 

“I think I’m going to forgive him.” Hyungwon mutters. Jooheon sighs; he can hear the frustration over the phone.

 

“ _You think? You always forgive him._ ” Jooheon says, and he sounds as upset as Minhyuk looks.

 

“You really love him.” Minhyuk sighs. “That’s your most defining trait, and I watched you believe his words time and time again, and I wanted to believe in them too. But when morning comes around and he always takes it back. I didn’t want to see you hurt again”

 

 _“Hyungwon, you love him more than he will ever know.”_ Jooheon crackled from over the speakerphone _“It’s unquantifiable, what you give him. Maybe he’ll wake up.”_

 

“Kyunnie says that he’ll never come around.” Hyungwon massages his temples, remembering his younger brother’s shaking hands and the angry twist of his mouth-the almost snarl. “I think he feels like I’ve wasted my time.”

 

“Do you feel like you’ve wasted your time?” Minhyuk ventures.

 

“No.” Hyungwon admits, looking at Jooheon’s contact picture on Minhyuk’s phone. Jooheon is bright and smiley, dimples deep in the selfie, but the silence from his end is heavy, oppressing. “I still love him.”

 

_“He doesn’t know how much.”_

Hyungwon does not have what the girls have, although he shares traits; the long legs, the full lips, the doe eyes. No matter what, Hyungwon is a man, and he thought he understood why Hoseok never touched him or kissed him, until they where fifteen, and Hoseok kissed him anyway, before taking it back the next day.

 

“It’s cause I’m not a girl.” Hyungwon says, his hand falling limp and open on the table. He can feel himself wilt under the electronic gaze. “If only I was a girl.”

 

“And what?” Minhyuk scoffs. “Hoseok-hyung is in love with you as you are now. Being a girl wouldn’t fix anything.” His older brother clenches his elegant fingers. “He’s just finding excuses.”

 

“That’s what Changkyun said.” Hyungwon mutters to the table.

* * *

The first time, they were fifteen, and they had gotten drunk on sweet cider, and Hoseok giggled his three words into their shared mouth. Hyungwon went to sleep, Hoseok’s arm curled around his waist, happy, joyous and finally calmed, only to wake up to Hoseok telling him that they couldn’t date, they couldn’t be together, that Hoseok wanted to date other people.

 

Hyungwon went back to his own house, chain-smoking his stash until the living room stunk like Pall Malls, and when his father came back home and smelled the stolen smoke, Hyungwon was grounded for two months, stuck to smoking cigarettes with towels shoved into the gaps of the bathroom doors. It helped, because Hoseok still wanted to hangout with him after school and on weekends and Hyungwon always said no, because he was grounded and also heartbroken, and he spent his sentence watching Hoseok chat up all the pretty girls, all the girls who always looked a bit too much like Hyungwon.

 

Hyungwon hates this memory. Being fifteen was one entire cringe fest, with his ideas of love being forever and the lifetime of being overlooked that he contracted himself into. He drapes himself dramatically over the railing of his balcony with a pack of rare Lucky Strikes. Hyungwon rolls the bar of his gold and black Colibri lighter until the flame wakes up. Hoseok bought him this lighter for his eighteenth.

 

Hyungwon misses him.

 

He goes back inside, to lie down on his new fluffy rug from London, cigarette dangling in his mouth. He stares at the moon through the sliding glass, the paled yellow yolk of it heavy in the sky, the pallid light making everything look gloomy today. Hyungwon puffs temporary mock clouds over his head, creating a haze over his vision. Things are blurry.

 

Hyungwon decides there and then, he wants a Coke. That’s what makes him bundle up in a giant fur coat and walk to the nearest Off-Licence. He looks like a gangster, cigarette burning between his lips as he shuffles down the bar-lit streets in his ‘fuck-you’ fur coat. People don’t even try to holler or leer, keeping their distance from him, just as he likes it.

 

He peers into the shop window to see this one guy Hyungwon had a thing with, like two weekends ago, when Kihyun and Hyunwoo dragged him down to the bar, is staffing the Off-Licence. Right now Hyungwon doesn’t want to have to look Kim Mingyu in the eye with his tired face and remember kissing him. That’s the only reason Hyungwon braves the detour to Sainsbury’s, the Sainsbury’s where Hyungwon made eye contact with Hoseok while he was kissing what’s-her-face and _oh my god_ , Hoseok’s there, trying to pet a dog leashed outside.

 

Maybe it wasn’t too late, and Hyungwon could swerve and forget about the Coke, and go back home and curse England’s lack of 7-11s, but Hoseok spots him because the Chihuahua barks and it’s like being dunked in cold water.

 

“Hyungwon.” Hoseok breathes. Hoseok doesn’t look too terrible, maybe he’s a little thin and his eyes are really red and his chin is wobbling and-ok, Hoseok looks terrible. Hyungwon can’t say the same for himself. Hyungwon looks best at 3am.

 

“Why?” Hyungwon is finally asking The Question™, and they are really doing this, outside the Sainsbury’s Hyungwon caught Hoseok with that girl, where it all started, a month ago, and now it’s coming to a head. Hyungwon’s voice is dry and cold for once, his eyes free of any tears. “Why do you take your confessions back?”

 

“I…” Hoseok shuffles his feet, the tip of his nose and cheeks rosy in the cold air. As miserable as he looks, he still looks adorable in his big fluffy sweater and oversized cardigan. “I just…I wanted girls to like me, and be attracted to me, but I still wanted you. But you were a man and my best friend but I always wanted you-Because you were mine and I knew you would always be waiting and-and- _I regret it.”_

 

Hoseok is sobbing now, the kind of crying that you really only do as a kid, when you can’t catch breath and your tears choke you, so you are left gasping for air through these huge, bone-shaking sobs.

 

“Hyungwonnie. I’m _sorry_.” Hoseok mumbles through gasps, a tongue stumbling with the rare vowels, voice wet and destroyed. “ I’m so sorry. I missed you, and I saw you two Saturdays ago with Kim Mingyu and you were kissing him and it was lonely without you, it was like there was nothing. And I know how much I hurt you, because I felt it and I’m sorry.”

Hoseok’s hiccups go quiet into the night. The street and pavement are cleared and what little people are out are giving them a wide berth. There’s a wide-eyed boy awkwardly shuffling around them as he tries his best to unleash the Chihuahua, who is keeping quiet. It wasn't supposed to be like this, it was supposed to be Hoseok outside his house with some romantic grand gesture, it was supposed to be a boombox outside his balcony, a thousand red rose, this was supposed to happen with something  _big_.

 

“Wonnie.” Hoseok starts. The boy scrambles away, almost Naruto running away, and now it’s just them. The grand gesture wouldn't have made Hoseok and Hyungwon last, because it would have been Hoseok, hiding again behind a veneer. It was really supposed to be like this, this small moment, when the streets are wet with fresh rain and the sounds of the bars mix with the cars rolling by, with the headlights and neon signs lighting up Hoseok’s face.

 

“Hoseok.” Hyungwon says, still keeping his distance, wary. “I don’t know if I can trust you.”

 

Hoseok lunges forward, grabbing Hyungwon’s hands in his. Hoseok’s hands are cold, and rough, and the grip is tight, iron shackles around Hyungwon’s hands. Hoseok’s fingers become soft, intertwining with Hyungwon’s, and the shackles become Hoseok holding his hands carefully, like Hyungwon’s precious.

 

“Hyungwon.” Hoseok says again, and the voice is so desperate, so miserable. “I _love_ you. I’m not taking it back.”

 

There it is, the conviction. There it is, the actual truth. Hyungwon sighs, and his breath is delicate cotton being spun between them, the fog catching in the stilled wind and disappearing. Hoseok is wrecked before him, just like how Hyungwon was, every single time Hoseok took back his words.

 

 “One more chance.” Hoseok pleads, staring into his eyes. “I won’t take it back.”

 

Hyungwon closes his eyes, Hoseok’s hands on his, the breaths puffing across his face, the trembling of Hoseok’s fingertips.

 

“Fine.” Hyungwon says. This is the last go around, the last chance. It flows out of him, and Hyungwon’s weak now, emptied and dried out. “I love you.”

 

Hoseok gasps and takes Hyungwon’s hands in his. The street, the bars and cars, the country, even the moon, is silent.

 

“I love you.” Hoseok says. The words, reverent, go singing into the truthful air.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I only wrote this because I love angst and Monsta X, so here the two things I love the most in the world, besides my best friend. Is it weird if I say I hoped at least one person cried?


End file.
